'Our Streets Are Made For People': San Francisco Mulls Ban On Delivery Robots (theguardian.com)

Norman Yee, an American elected official in San Francisco, has recently proposed legislation that would prohibit autonomous delivery robots -- which includes those with a remote human operator -- on public streets in the city. In a statement provided to Recode, Yee said, "our streets and our sidewalks are made for people, not robots." He also worries that many delivery jobs would disappear. The proposed legislation is causing a headache for one high-tech startup in particular. The tech company is called Marble, which uses bots fitted with camera and ultrasonic sensors to deliver small packages and food within a one or two mile radius. The delivery robots themselves travel at a walking pace and use cameras and sensors to avoid pedestrians and navigate pavements. The Guardian reports: San Francisco police commander Robert O'Sullivan is in favor of the legislation, fearing the robots could harm children, the elderly, and those with limited mobility. "If hit by a car, they also have the potential of becoming a deadly projectile," he told a local TV station. Marble CEO Matt Delaney says these fears are unfounded. "We care that our robots are good citizens of the sidewalk," he says. "We've taken a lot of care from the ground up to consider their need to sense and intuit how people are going to react."

Comments

buggy whips

[Anonymous Coward]

We must stop the impending automobile revolution. It worry that many buggy whip manufacturing jobs may disappear. In addition, they startle the horses.

Re: buggy whips

[fermion]

Our roads are made for people, not horses. We can deal with skateboards and unicycles and bicycles, but not your new fangled horse carriages.

What is truly stupid here is that a self driving car is just a drone with a person in it. Why are they allowing Uber to test self driving cars, but have a problem with drones? Aren't they hey both going to clog the streets?

Re: buggy whips

[PCM2]

Our roads are made for people, not horses. We can deal with skateboards and unicycles and bicycles, but not your new fangled horse carriages.

Actually, in San Francisco our roads are made for cars, trucks, and buses ... AND bicycles, skateboards, unicycles, etc, none of which are allowed on sidewalks where the people are.

Re:buggy whips

[king neckbeard]

Not really. Any idiot could do those jobs after being trained. He just found that workers that could afford to eat three meals a day were able to stick around longer, cutting down on the costs of training 5 people to keep 1 around for more than a few months.

Re: buggy whips

[MrL0G1C]

Which is kind of wrong, In UK the average number of people killed by cyclists anywhere including on the roads is between 0 and 1 out of a population of 65 million.

Meanwhile motor vehicles kill several people per year on the 'sidewalks' (dozens?).

I'm surprised

[RhettLivingston]

I would have never picked San Francisco as one of the starting points for laws specifically discriminating against robots. I'd have expected something like their being the leaders in placing the "R" on LGBTQ.

Re:I'm surprised

[ooloorie]

It's not as much about diet as survival at this point now that I am 47. I don't make enough for fresh or healthy food here - that stuff can get expensive,

There are plenty of cheap and nutritious foods: lentils, beans, peas, carrots, beans, peanuts, potatoes, rice, noodles, chicken, etc.

There are plenty of online recipes: https://www.google.com/search?...

I was born and have lived in Silicone Valley all my life.

Well, maybe you should consider moving out of "Silicone Valley" to some a place that matches your capacity for earning a living.

Re:I'm surprised

[drinkypoo]

Not the same as San Francisco, then, where food is hella expensive.

Staples cost the same in SF as they do anywhere else, especially if you order them from out of town. If you never cook, then you might get the idea that food is expensive, because SF restaurants are more expensive than restaurants most other places in California, due to overhead. Produce costs a little more, but there are actual logistic issues involved in bringing stuff into SF. You can always drive across a bridge to do your shopping. Or if you have room for a larder and a chest freezer then go shop at Cash and Carry at 170 S Van Ness. Just about every house in SF has a garage with room for same; apartment dwellers are the ones getting screwed here, but hey, go live someplace else, SF is special and there's only so much to go around. Also, cramming it with so many people has ruined what was good about it, like say the Trocadero Transfer Club at 4th and Bryant. Why in shit do people want to life in SF any more anyway?

Re:I'm surprised

[__aanljs7351]

On a diet. Chicken is extremely expensive. I only make 50k a year patching laptops, and have to life in a 400ft studio as it is. Retirement - forget it, ever. But it's very important for me to stay where I grew up, despite the mom who hated me all her life before she died, and the alcoholic dad. beans/nuts/potatoes/noodles/etc - everything but carrots on that list is a high calorie food. What I need to do is eat shiratake noodles from Japan, Chicken breast, turkey breast, etc. This is not cheap, and if I could spend literally half my salary on food, I believe I would in fact get skinny. A diet that's pretty much all protein and dietary fiber would do it, but that is not cheap and I have to choose between rent and food if I do that.

Re:I'm surprised

[ooloorie]

if I could spend literally half my salary on food, I believe I would in fact get skinny. A diet that's pretty much all protein and dietary fiber would do it,

Not only is the diet you want needlessly expensive, you wouldn't be losing weight on it, and you'd probably be hurting yourself.

You do not need to spend a lot of money to lose weight. Pick one of the cheap bulk vegetables (cabbage, cauliflower, carrots, lentils, peas, broccoli, etc.), then add some of the other cheap foods for nutrients and variety.

Oh, and how many miles do you walk/run/bike a day? How often do you go to the gym per week?

But it's very important for me to stay where I grew up

Hundreds of millions of people have to pick up and leave their countries (I did). You have it easy: you have the entire US to move to.

You're 47, obese, and poor. Obviously, whatever you're doing isn't working. Instead of feeling sorry for yourself, do something about it and make changes.

Re:I'm surprised

[Anonymous Coward]

You have noticed that this is a new troll account? It's not creimer, it's "creinner".

Put delivery robots on equal footing with pets

[fibonacci8]

If they're as hazardous as pets, give them the same requirements. For example a leash, a license, and being accompanied by a human all have precedent. Put it to a vote and solve the issue rather than lamenting potential lost jobs.

No

[phantomfive]

I don't know who San Francisco streets are designed for, but it's certainly not people. For one thing, street signs are often hidden or non-existent. For another thing, in places where a "walk/don't walk" sign would make perfect sense, they are often absent.....even in areas with high pedestrian accidents. The street is partly optimized for driving, partly optimized for walking, partly optimized for biking, and partly optimized to being as annoying as possible to outsiders.

The streets of San Francisco are not well designed by any perspective.

Re:No

[PopeRatzo]

I don't know who San Francisco streets are designed for, but it's certainly not people. For one thing, street signs are often hidden or non-existent. For another thing, in places where a "walk/don't walk" sign would make perfect sense, they are often absent.....even in areas with high pedestrian accidents. The street is partly optimized for driving, partly optimized for walking, partly optimized for biking, and partly optimized to being as annoying as possible to outsiders.

Man, if you think San Francisco is bad for pedestrians, you don't ever want to visit Houston. Gigantic city, and it's like they exist in a time after the emergence of giant office towers and highrises, but before the invention of sidewalks. Twelve lane superhighways all over the city, with insufficient signage, so drivers always have to cut across five lanes of traffic to make their turn-off. Lines on the highway that you can't see during the day or if it rains. Few trees, so a brutal sun, glaring like an angry god, cooks flora and fauna except for three months out of the year. No state income tax, so the infrastructure is either brand new or falling to pieces. No in-between. Everything made on the cheap, because people just come here to make some money (or used to, before oil went to $50/barrel) and nobody puts roots down here willingly.

And the best part? Absolutely no zoning laws, so you'll have a lovely quiet little residential neighborhood with ugly faux-brutalist high-rises on the corner and a strip mall smack in the middle of the block.

Re:No

[Waffle Iron]

I don't know who San Francisco streets are designed for, but it's certainly not people.

They were clearly designed for one thing only: Enabling Steve McQueen to take his Mustang GT airborne at each and every intersection.

Re:No

[Khyber]

If you're too lazy to look up San Fran streets on Google Earth you simply don't need to even be on the internet.

The entirety of mankind's knowledge is at your fingertips - if you can't find a fucking citation on your own you don't belong on the internet and should reattach yourself to mommy's teat.

Re:No

[udachny]

This was the best advertising for moving to Houston that I have ever read. No zoning by laws so everything is more convenient, no state income tax. Thank you, I will go to visit this August.

Correct

[SuperKendall]

After many, many visits to SF, both walking and biking scores of miles all around the city - I would say the city was actually designed as a kind of massive DARPA challenge to see if someone can design a warbot robust enough to survive the most extreme conditions.

I would say if a robot could last a week wandering around various parts of SF, I would have no problem sending it into Syria or Afghanistan.

P.S. - Robot makers, if you value your product at all please for the love of God make it poop proof. You'll see.

Re:Let's remove the washing machines too

[Daemonik]

Well, we sure can't make America Great by moving all the wealth into the hands of an elite few and then using high level AI robots to replace all the non-specialized workers either.

Ruthless killers

[Waffle Iron]

San Francisco police commander Robert O'Sullivan is in favor of the legislation, fearing the robots could harm children, the elderly, and those with limited mobility.

That's obvious. Robots, being machines, have no empathy. Like any successful predator, they are going to first target those vulnerable individuals who get separated from the main herd, regardless of the reason.

Re:Racists

[lgw]

Worried about robots harming the children and elderly? Stop worrying! Just buy Old Glory robot insurance, and you're covered.

Re: More job-killing regulations

[Shompol]

Isn't that the goal of every business?

Re:Banning is the wrong thing for the elderly

[PCM2]

Delivery services make life much easier when you have trouble leaving your home.

The thing is, it's not like anybody had any trouble getting food delivered before they invented robots. San Francisco is filled with delivery services ... for prepared meals, for groceries, for whatever you want. And when you add the fact that these robots each have a human to guide them around, it's hard to see what value they add.

Re: More job-killing regulations

[MightyYar]

Not explicitly, but "reducing labor costs" certainly is. And a good thing, too, or we'd all be subsistence farmers.

Re: More job-killing regulations

[Salgak1]

When the minimum wage in San Francisco is $15/hour, many delivery jobs simply don't provide sufficient value to sustain the position.

A robot is a one-time sunk cost. plus maintenance and charging. But certainly less than wages and mandated benefits and employer contributions. The business can continue delivering food, and make a profit.

Ban robots. . . and the delivery jobs will not come back, delivery will, for the most part, end. Certainly, high-end "gourmet" delivery will be sustainable, but that's a small fraction of the overall delivery business. Most places will simply shut down, raising unemployment and cutting choice.

Why this isn't obvious, evades me. . .